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Clarity in the Mystery of All-New Wolverine 26

by Patrick Ehlers

This article containers SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk.

There are a couple mysteries at the heart of All-New Wolverine 26. What happened to Laura’s mother? What is currently happening to Daken? Those are kind of soft mysteries, where the reader can make some easy assumptions and figure out at least some version of the events. Daken is being experimented on the the mysterious Orphans of X? Yeah, okay, there’s probably a specific reason for that, but the mystery isn’t going to keep me up at night. Where writer Tom Taylor and artist Juan Cabal pull the rug out from under us is in questioning the realty of Daken’s experience all together.

Daken probably articulates his confusion better than I could, so I’ll let his simple “Huh? What the **** is going on?” speak for itself. Is he really being chased by an army of Orphans? The reader has spent so much time closely aligned with Daken’s perspective, and getting what we had to assume was a complete picture. Cabal does these gorgeous layouts that simultaneously give us a complete snapshot of a moment while also obscuring pieces of it.

The bulk of this page is made up of the single image of Daken splayed out on this horrifying slab. Cabal inserts all these other images into the nightmare mosaic. The result is that we think we are getting a lot of informantion, but the reality of that may be that each new panel represents a disruption to understanding that information in the first place. Our understanding here is schematic, and it doesn’t take long for the whole scheme to be thrown into question.

It’s an interesting mystery, and the fact that Laura and Gabby find themselves accidentally right next to it just raises more questions.

The conversation doesn’t stop there. What do you wanna talk about from this issue?

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One comment on “Clarity in the Mystery of All-New Wolverine 26”

I really wish they spent more time with Sarah. Instead of just expositing and set up that this is a trap, I wish they made clear what this means. To Laura. To Meagan and Debbie. We have a real family reunion here, the best parts of Laura’s past together again, seemingly absent of the tragedies that ruined them. Laura’s family is finally fully reunited, after everything horrible that has happened to them because of Laura. What does that mean?

The only person we really focus on is Gabby, who is new and the point is she has no existing relationship. There was a missed opportunity to do an issue about Laura and Gabby spending time with Meagan and Debbie after Enemy of the State II, and this feels just as missed.

At least the Orphans of X seem interesting. As cliffhangers go, that was a great one.

Also, I find it really interesting that this book wasn’t renumbered. Renumbering is stupid and Marvel is stupid for doing so, but I find it weird that this is one of the few books that didn’t get renumbered. Maybe they are saving the Wolverine numbers for whatever book tells Logan’s story, but considering Laura used to have her own ongoing, why not use those? Glad it wasn’t renumbered, but weird